New Rig - Mission Impossible

Zatoichi1800 · Post by **Zatoichi1800** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 4:55 pm

Calling all that love to design awesome rigs. Here is a challenge for ya. Looking to build an awesome rig that is a power horse or close enough for making AMV and playing a few games...all for only $200 - max$300!!! Here is what I will be working with, if you choose to take on this mission:

I have currently a HP Compaq XL-848 comp. I plan on replacing the motherboard, ram, video card, PSU, chip and a new serial HDD. I have like 4 other parallel HDD that I will hook up for encoding and editing. I have been outta of the loop of new comp hardware for more than 3yrs, since I was in south america and barely on the internet learning the latest news in this field. I need help in finding some options so I can build this fugly duckling comp.

Here are the links for the physical dim of the case and I will need a micro atx mobo and small size to fit in case PSU as well.

Comp system:

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/Te ... D=bph06467

-Thanks

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 5:05 pm

Out of the loop for 3 years? What a cooincidence - If you're only wanting to spend $300 or less you should still be familiar with the hardware you can afford.

Zatoichi1800 · Post by **Zatoichi1800** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 5:16 pm

let's see my last rig I built was watercooled, amd 1.8 overclocked to 2.2ghz, 1 gig ram(2x512Ram dual channel) asus a7n8x deluxe mobo, maxtor serial 80 gig in Raid 0 , all-in-one wonder 9700 pro ATI card. I have no clue what comes after that type of components. I heard about pci express...last I knew AGP was fast, now I find out this new shit pci 16 something runs circles around agp. I tried reading up on the lastest but my eyes gloss over.

Oh BTW that rig I built is still in south america for now. until I get enough money to buy a plane ticket and go back to pick that baby up. so I am stuck with this compaq that I got for trading with an old digi cam with some kid that needed a camera really bad!!!

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 5:35 pm

Well, you can put something together for that price, but it's not going to be good. I wouldn't expect any pci express cards to be much better than onboard video for less than $50 - personally, I spent around $200 on my video card alone back in January.

Building something that far from top-of-the-line negates much of the savings in building a system yourself. I'd be inclined to believe you'd be better off getting the oldest thing Dell still sold.

check out what you can afford on NewEgg, but it's definately a waste to spend that little on a whole system.

Scintilla · Post by **Scintilla** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 5:55 pm

BasharOfTheAges wrote:I wouldn't expect any pci express cards to be much better than onboard video for less than $50...

They HAVE PCI-Express video cards for less than $50?

But yeah, $300 or less is not going to build you a "power horse"... at least not in the USA.

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 6:01 pm

Scintilla wrote:They HAVE PCI-Express video cards for less than $50?

Yea, I was shocked too... but apparently newegg has quite a few listed for under $50.

Zatoichi1800 · Post by **Zatoichi1800** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 7:08 pm

OK so maybe no powerhorse but something better than this freaking 850 mhz system. I have another comp that is 1.3 ghz but I wonder if I can build a system of 3ghz with 200-300 bucks?

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 8:00 pm

... I'm sure you're aware of the megahertz myth... right?

BasharOfTheAges · Post by **BasharOfTheAges** » Tue Jun 26, 2007 8:10 pm

newegg seems to be acting up, but here's a choice... an older chip, but it should be somewhat decent - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819116004

Joe88 · Post by **Joe88** » Wed Jun 27, 2007 1:04 am

intel dual-core cpu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819116259

amd dual-core cpu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103760